CALIFORNIA ex rel. STATE LANDS COMMISSION v. UNITED STATES (457 U.S. 273)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 18, 1982 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 457 U.S. 273 · 102 S. Ct. 2432
- Decided
- June 18, 1982
- Term
- October Term 1981
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice White
- Issue area
- Federalism
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court. The issue before the Court is the ownership of oceanfront land created through accretion to land owned by the United States on the coast of California. The decision turns on whether federal or state law governs the issue. M From the time of California s admission to the Union in 1850, the United States owned the upland on the north side of the entrance channel to Humboldt Bay, Cal. In 1859 and 1871, the Secretary of the Interior ordered that certain of these lands, which fronted on the Pacific Ocean, the channel, and Humboldt Bay be reserved from public sale. Since that time the land has been continuously possessed by the United States and used as a Coast Guard Reservation. The Pacific shoreline along the Coast Guard site remained substantially unchanged until near the turn of the century when the United States began construction of two jetties at the entrance to Humboldt Bay. The jetty constructed on the north side of the entrance resulted in fairly rapid accretion on the ocean side of the Coast Guard Reservation, so that formerly submerged lands became uplands. One hundred and eighty-four acres of upland were created by the seaward movement of the ordinary high-water mark. This land, which remains barren save for a watchtower, is the subject of the dispute in this case. The controversy arose in 1977 when the Coast Guard…
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